Broken Promises

The farm was too still when they pulled the truck up the long drive. They hadn’t stayed out late, barely past eleven o’clock, but the house still looked empty. No one sat on the porch swing outside. No lights flickered in the windows and no shadows moved inside the house where living, breathing people were supposed to be.

Theo brought the truck to a stop. She leaned over the steering wheel to peer closer at the house. “That can’t be good.”

Dread trickled down Kore’s spine. “Maybe everyone is asleep.”

“You think your mother would close her eyes with you off the farm?”

She wanted to say yes, but even Kore knew no such thing would have happened.

They climbed out of the truck, the sound of the doors too loud in the eerie quiet. The three of them started towards the house, their steps the only noise in the autumn night.

The front door opened before they made it all the way around the oak tree. Mother emerged, wrapped in a long nightgown and her dressing robe. Her face tightened, anger forming in the set of her brows, the pinch of her mouth.

Kore stepped forward. She started to protest, to make her excuses, to at least get Theo and Violetta out of the way, but Mother flicked her wrist and sent yellow shoots erupting from the earth, surrounding Kore in a wheat-stalk cage. Kore yanked at the vines, but Mother had made them thick—tree branches instead of grass shoots.

“What is this?” Kore demanded. “Mother, let me out! We can talk about this!”

Mother didn’t respond. Her sandals crunched on the drive, coming to a slow stop in front of the girls. “Explain yourselves.”

“We’re sorry,” Theo said. “We didn’t mean for it to get so late.”

“You’ve been gone for hours.”

“I know. It’s my fault. I should have kept a better eye on the time.”

“If the tire was so hard to change, you should have called me. I would have come to make sure you were all right.”

Confusion stilled Kore’s muscles. Mother didn’t believe the excuse Theo had sent, did she? Surely she wouldn’t be this upset about a tire?

Theo recovered smoothly enough. “We figured it out. It was kind of fun, actually. Kore got to try fries for the first time.”

“You took her to a diner?” Mother’s voice hit that same octave from the beach. Kore imagined vines wrapping around Theo and Violetta, their necks blossoming in the ugly orange and yellow that had covered Hades’s skin.

“We always go.” Violetta now, indignation coloring her voice. “You gave us the money for it!”

“I gave you money for food. Not so you could find a restaurant where anyone could pass by. Who knows what could have happened had another god learned she was there.”

Theo’s voice next, smooth and placating. “I don’t think a diner, in the middle of nowhere, is the place any gods go for their information.”

“Regardless, it was too big of a risk.”

Kore’s head spun. None of Mother’s words made any sense. She must have lost her mind. Kore grabbed one of the vines, dug her shoe in, and started climbing.

“I told you to keep her safe,” Mother hissed. “You put her and the farm in danger by not keeping me informed of the situation.”

“We’re back in one piece,” Violetta snapped. “That’s not good enough for you?”

“I’m afraid it’s not.”

“This is ridiculous. You can’t keep her here forever, you know. The fact that she’s put up with it this long is weird.”

Kore shimmied her way to the top of the wall. She hiked one knee over, then the other, and wondered if it was better to jump to the ground or try to climb.

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When Mother spoke again, any affection had fled her tone. “I’d like you both to pack your things. I expect you off the farm in the morning.”

Surprise loosened Kore’s grip. She landed in a painful heap on the ground.

“You’re kicking us off the farm?!” Theo screeched. “For what?”

“You placed Kore in danger. I can’t allow such behavior to continue, not after what she’s been through already.”

Kore scrambled to her feet. “Mother, you can’t be serious. They’ve done nothing wrong!”

“I beg to differ.” Mother looked at each of them in turn, her eyes livid. “You’re lucky nothing happened, Kore. Take this as a warning. Now you understand what leaving gets you.”

The urge to bring up the party, to throw in Mother’s face that she’d gone and drank and stood alone in a dark parking lot with Apollo welled inside Kore. If Mother was upset now, wait till she found out about the vision he’d shown her.

Kore almost did it, but a glance at Theo, her arms crossed and her mouth set, stilled her tongue. She looked close to tears, and Kore couldn’t imagine what danced through her head.

So Kore moved to stand between Mother and the two girls, and played the last card she had. “If you kick them out, I’m going too.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you’re not.”

“You want to try to stop me?”

Mother’s jaw worked. Her fingers twitched. A horrifying moment passed where Kore thought Mother would actually do it.

But Mother didn’t get the chance, because Theo took a step back. “No, Kore. Don’t do this.”

“You don’t have to try to protect me, Theo. This is my fault.”

Theo met Kore’s eyes for a brief flash, enough for Kore to see the pain there. “I think it’s best for all of us if you stay here.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“I do. You don’t belong anywhere else.”

Kore opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

“Finally, something on which we can agree.” Mother clasped her hands. “I’m going to make some calls. Hestia should be able to make room for you until you decide where you want to go. I’m sure she’ll be able to collect you tomorrow morning.”

Both Theo and Violetta remained silent. Kore wished they would yell, or run, or do anything except hang their heads and take the sentence.

Mother motioned towards the house, opening an arm to Kore as she did. Kore thought about arguing, about pushing Mother away, about doing something, but it wasn’t her fight. Theo had made that clear.

Not knowing what else to do, she allowed herself to be drawn into Mother’s embrace. They walked together all the way up the drive.

#

Kore hadn’t gone to sleep. Tucked beside Mother, she’d tossed and turned and stared at the wall until she’d heard Mother’s breathing even out. She’d tried to accept it, had let Mother stroke her hair and promise all sorts of things Kore hadn’t believed, not anymore. Even when Mother kissed her temple the way she used to when Kore was a child, hugging Kore tight like she wished Mother would still do even when she didn’t get her way, Kore chafed at the touch.

When the silence had settled thick and uncomfortable around the room, Kore slipped from the covers. She padded across the floorboards, careful of the two that creaked by the foot of the bed. The door moved silently under her fingers, then she snuck from the room and turned for the stairs.

The sound of sleeping girls hung heavy in the loft. In the scant light, Kore saw all the girls lying on their cots—all but one. Theo’s outline slumped against the wall, her head stark against the window.

Kore picked her way between the girls until she reached her own bed. Theo didn’t look up as she sat. She wished she knew what to say, but no words presented themselves, so she reached for Theo’s hand instead.

Theo pushed her off. “Go away, Kore.”

Kore kept her voice low, less than a whisper. “Tell me how to fix this.”

A laugh escaped Theo, short and cynical. “Haven’t you done enough?”

“I’m trying to help.”

“I’d really prefer you didn’t. I’m getting kicked out of the only home I’ve known for two thousand years, because of you.”

Kore knew it. The weight of it made it hard to breathe. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“That almost makes it worse.”

“Where will you go?”

Theo shrugged. Kore heard her shoulder scrape along the wall. “Your mother seems to think Hestia would take us in, at least for a while.”

“And then?”

“What part of I don’t know are you not getting?” Theo snapped. “I’m not like you. I don’t have a safe place to go when the world gets scary. As soon as I walk off that drive, I’m on my own.”

Kore wished she could turn the clock hands and never, ever, set foot off the farm. But she didn’t have that power, and she couldn’t leave Theo to a mess Theo hadn’t made.

“I might know somewhere you can go,” Kore whispered.

“Stars, not another one of your schemes. How long is it going to take before you realize they never work? Leave it alone, before you make everything worse.”

Kore swallowed the barb; she deserved it. “Just tell me—if I found a safe place for you, would you go?”

“What are you talking about?”

“If there was a city with other immortals, and I told you that you could have a house and a life that wasn’t this, would you want it?”

Kore could feel the weight of Theo’s stare in the dark. “No place like that exists. Maybe under the ocean, in one of Poseidon’s kingdoms, but I don’t really want to look at fish all day.”

Kore reached for Theo’s hands again, and this time she let Kore take them. “I’ll fix this. I promise.”

“Please, be careful. I don’t want to see you hurt, either.”

But Kore had already sunk to the floor and reached for her footlocker. Apollo’s vision hung heavy in her mind, and she pushed it forcefully away. She couldn’t leave Theo to whatever fate Mother had set for her, simply because she feared a vision that may or may not come true. Nothing would make her give up all of eternity on the surface.

At least, that’s what she told herself as she stuffed her few possessions into a bag, the action feeling more permanent than she thought it should.